Five Tries
by O Mayari
Summary: Four times Steve Rogers tried to find his best friend a family, and one time a family found him. Or, alternately, five times Steve and Bucky were nearly separated by adoption.


Warning for child abuse. Very definitely movieverse, though it entirely disregards First Vengeance and probably anything and everything not directly in the film. Gen but can be read as slashy/pre-slash.

* * *

1.

Mr. Sloane was tall and had solemn gray eyes, and Mrs. Sloane was blonde, like Ma had been. They brought toys for everybody – tops and jacks and footballs and even a toy gun that all the boys had to take turns using. Charlie Murphy tried to shove Steve away when it was his turn, so Bucky kicked him hard enough to make Mrs. Sloane's eyes widen, and then Sister Felicity sent him for a paddling.

They did not want Charlie Murphy, not after they'd seen him shove Steve. They did not want Fred Ward, either, because he kept hoarding all the jacks. They did not want Lloyd Fasola, who whispered very loudly that a Kodak camera like the ones they advertised on the subway would have been better than an old toy gun. And they did not want Elmer Hughes, even though he knew some Latin and could probably be a priest someday.

When it was Steve's turn, he stood up as tall as he could and didn't make any complaints when Mrs. Sloane touched his hair; and, when Mr. Sloane asked (for the twentieth time in a row) how old this little boy was, said, "Ten," and smiled, because Mrs. Palmieri who sold the chestnuts on Bedford Avenue said that his smile was his best feature.

Mrs. Sloane smiled back and whispered something to Mr. Sloane.

Mr. Sloane looked at her doubtfully and then looked back at Steve and said that Steve didn't _look_ ten, and then Sister Catherine made Steve strip down to his undershirt and they all spoke in what they probably thought were hushed voices about T.B. and heart trouble.

When Steve looked up, Mrs. Sloane was making the noise that adults made when they wanted to show how sorry they were but didn't want to embarrass you or themselves by saying so outright, and Mr. Sloane was already asking Lloyd Fasola how old he was.

That was when they sent Bucky back in to apologize, which he did, but not like he meant it. He'd been meaning to give Charlie Murphy a kick for a long time; he'd told Steve so, and there wasn't an "I'm sorry" in the world that could make up for how defiant and satisfied he looked.

Mr. Sloane must have noticed this, because he said wanted to know the name of the stalwart young defender.

And Bucky said, "Bucky."

And Sister Catherine said, "James."

And Mr. Sloane said that the Sloanes liked a boy with some fire in him, and Mrs. Sloane said that James really had a great deal of spirit, which was exactly what a little boy ought to have.

And Bucky scowled, but evidently they didn't mind this because after dinner Sister Felicity brought out a knapsack with a Bible and a Catechism book and an extra pair of that long underwear that had been donated by the women on the board of the foundling hospital, and Reverend Mother called Father Clark over from the church to speak very solemnly about Bucky's responsibilities as a Good Young American Soldier of the Catholic Church now that he was leaving the Warm And Holy Bosom Of The Sisters of Saint Joseph.

Bucky did not like it in the Warm And Holy Bosom, so Steve would have thought he'd be glad to go, but instead he put up a fuss until Father Clark boxed his ears, and before he left he found Steve and said, "You should be coming with me."

"I guess they only need one," Steve said.

"Well, they're not going to get this one," Bucky said, "Who's going to kick Charlie Murphy for you if I'm not here?"

"Don't be a punk," Steve said, sighing.

But that night he made sure to pray that the Sloanes would have toys back at their house – even nicer toys: catcher's mitts because that was Bucky's favorite position to play, and a brand new blue bicycle because that was Bucky's favorite color, and maybe a toy rifle all for Bucky. And maybe Mrs. Sloane did not believe that boys should be paddled (Steve's Ma hadn't, so it wasn't like all adults thought so, no matter what Bucky said), and maybe Mr. Sloane was a Dodgers fan and would promise to take Bucky to Ebbets Field if he behaved himself.

And maybe Bucky _would_ behave himself, and not come back this time.

Charlie Murphy beat the snot out of Steve the next week, and Sister Martha felt so bad for him that she took him along when she was doing charity work down on Fulton Street. She even gave him a penny to buy a pickle, and that was how he met Mr. Dvorak, who said that his best feature was his shining blond hair.

Steve had suspected as much, from the way Mrs. Sloane had touched it, but he didn't think it was fair to have something like that as your best feature, since lots of the fellows at the orphanage couldn't help not having blond hair, and it would be silly to get picked over something like that, anyway.

"Well," Mr. Dvorak said, fishing out another pickle and handing it to Steve with a wink, free of charge. "Why do you think they pick the little boys they pick, then?"

Steve shrugged. "They like stalwart young defenders," he told Mr. Dvorak.

"Well, you be one of those, then," Mr. Dvorak said.

Steve didn't think that was a half-bad idea, even if it turned out that they picked you because of blond hair and not because of how stalwart you were. He didn't think there was anything wrong with being stalwart and standing up for your friends the way Bucky always did for him. It couldn't hurt, in any case.

But when Steve and Sister Martha got back to the orphanage, there was Bucky, lying on his stomach like he'd just had another paddling.

"Told you," Bucky said.

"I liked the Sloanes," Steve said.

"No, you didn't," Bucky said. "He snores, and she has this huge, fat cat. She feeds it sardines. That's all they eat at their house: sardines. Every day. And when I said they were making me sick from the sardines they locked me in the basement."

"That's not true," Steve said.

"Yes it is," Bucky said. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. Fred told me what happened with Charlie Murphy. Come on, I owe him another kick."

The Sloanes decided to adopt Elmer Hughes instead. It was probably for the best.

2.

The Baxters already had children, but they wanted a boy. Mr. Baxter was very fat and pink, and so was the older Miss Baxter, and Mrs. Baxter had pretty blue eyes, just like Steve's Ma and the younger Miss Baxter. Bucky made a sound in his throat like he was vomiting when Sister Catherine announced that one lucky boy would soon gain two older sisters, but Steve didn't think they looked so bad. He wasn't sure how you treated sisters – you couldn't get rowdy with girls the way you could with boys, but Steve couldn't roughhouse like the other boys, anyway, not with his asthma. And he liked the way the older one wouldn't let Charlie Murphy boss her around.

"Look at his hair," said the younger Miss Baxter. "It's like my old Edith doll's."

Bucky made the vomiting sound again, but Steve let Mrs. Baxter lead him by the hand to the window seat that Sister Felicity said was Strictly For The Guests, even though he still didn't like the thought of being picked because of his hair, and even though he liked the thought of being picked because he looked like an old Edith doll even less.

"What are your hobbies, Steven?" asked Mrs. Baxter.

"Drawing, mostly," Steve said, "And I like baseball, but I guess I don't play it much." He couldn't run that fast, or hit that well, and Charlie Murphy always wanted to be pitcher, even though Bucky insisted that Steve's curveball was a million times better.

"Oh, a baseball fan?" said Mrs. Baxter, clapping her hands together. "How lovely! Alfred's always wanted a boy to take to baseball games."

"Yes, ma'am," Steve said, something going funny and light in his chest like it would on the days his ma would say he was well enough to play outside with the other boys. "I like the Dodgers."

"A man after my own heart!" said Mr. Baxter, and began describing all the great games he'd been to, at least four times a year, all the way back to when the team had been the Brooklyn Superbas and not the Brooklyn Dodgers. The older Miss Baxter began teasing her father about being so old and he didn't even get angry – he just teased back, but in a friendly way – and they both made Steve laugh so hard that of course he couldn't help coughing. So then Sister Martha had to tell them about the asthma and the time he had rheumatic fever and all the colds he got every time the weather changed.

You couldn't lie to people about that. It wasn't right.

Mr. Baxter's eyes went all crinkly and disappointed behind his glasses, and Mrs. Baxter said something about how there were bound to be bills, and the younger Miss Baxter said that that explained how _small_ Steve was and also that she didn't want someone sniffling all over her old toys, and the older Miss Baxter said, "Oh, just pipe down, Minnie."

"Yeah, _Minnie_," said Bucky, who'd had his hands strapped more times than anyone could count because he was so good at sneaking up behind the window seat. "What makes you think he'd want to play with your old Edith doll, anyway?"

Miss Baxter the younger shrieked and jumped up in fear and said that he was horrible; and Sister Felicity said that they did not spare the rod here, never fear; and Mr. Baxter said that there was no need for that because they always spared the rod in the Baxter house.

"I do think Minnie and Myrtle could use someone to challenge them, though," said Mr. Baxter.

"Oh, James is certainly a challenge," said Sister Felicity.

"Well, James," said Mrs. Baxter, "Living with two girls can be a challenge in itself, so how about—"

"Bucky doesn't back down from a challenge," Steve said then, because he still liked the Baxters, even though he was pretty sure they'd forgotten about him after Minnie Baxter's outburst had pushed him off the window seat, and just because they weren't the family for him didn't mean they couldn't be the family for Bucky. "Never."

"Oh, Bucky Baxter!" said Myrtle Baxter. "I like it."

Bucky shot him a dirty look, but Steve didn't care. The Baxters would make a great family. They were funny, and they didn't believe in paddling or strapping, and they were Dodgers fans. Steve wondered if Mr. Baxter knew the players, if he had a blue and white jacket that he would let Bucky wear when he took him to ball games. And Steve knew that Myrtle Baxter would make a good sister. She was certainly nice: while Father Clark was releasing Bucky from the Bosom (again), she found Steve and promised that she'd make Bucky write every week.

So Steve prayed for lots of letters, because that would mean that Bucky was staying with the Baxters for a long time, maybe for forever. And also he prayed that Mr. Baxter had a baseball signed by the great Nap Rucker, and that he'd let Bucky see it, and that Myrtle Baxter wouldn't mind when Bucky teased her back, and that Minnie Baxter would have better toys to pass on to Bucky than just an old Edith doll.

Charlie Murphy picked on little Herb Clancey the next day because he was only seven and also a genuine foundling, not like the other boys, and Bucky wasn't there to help, so Steve helped on his own. Father Clark found Steve in the corner of the yard after Charlie had thrashed him, boxed Steve's ears for fighting, and sent him to be bandaged by Sister Anthony.

Sister Anthony was good at bandaging because she helped out at the charity hospital near the docks, and she told Steve that, if he promised to be good, he could help her deliver prayer cards to the suffering there, which didn't sound like much fun but which was better than watching Fred and Charlie fight over the toy gun all day. They delivered the prayer cards (although most of the suffering were injured sailors who said they'd rather have something to drink, Sister, no offense), and then Sister Anthony said they could stop to eat some arbes, and Steve met Mrs. Saleh, who gave him extra because she said it would help him grow.

"I really need to grow," Steve said. "You can't be healthy if you don't grow. And they don't want you if you're too little."

Mrs. Saleh huffed. "Who wouldn't want a boy with those eyes, hmm?"

"Well, I think maybe the eyes or the hair doesn't matter so much," Steve said.

"Or the size?" said Mrs. Saleh.

Steve thought about this. Sure, people didn't want him because of his size, and because he was sick all the time, but people did want Bucky, and he didn't think it was just because Bucky was taller and never got sick. Who wouldn't want Bucky? Bucky always helped his friends, and he never backed down from a fight, and Steve thought that was probably what counted. That was why Steve wanted him for a best friend, anyway, and that wouldn't change even if Bucky were the little one and Steve were a whole lot bigger than he was. And Steve's size never mattered to Bucky, only to boys like Charlie Murphy, so that probably said something right there.

"Or the size," he told Mrs. Saleh.

"Very good," she said. "Now eat your food."

Steve waited for Bucky's letter all week, but he didn't get a letter. He got Bucky instead, and Bucky got caned by Father Clark.

"You should've stayed," Steve said. "They would've taken you to see a ball game and—"

"They're Giants fans," Bucky said, even though they both knew for a fact that wasn't true. "Their whole house is orange, too, that's how much they love the Giants, and it gives you a headache. And that younger girl is a dumb Dora, and she screams all the time, and they give her everything she wants and they call her _princess_, and the older one is meaner than a rabid dog—"

"Stop it," Steve said. "That's not true. She would've made a great sister."

Bucky stuck his head under his pillow and said, "Maybe I don't _want_ a sister, Steve. Maybe the only one who wants a sister is you."

Steve didn't say anything back, because even if he didn't want a sister specifically, he did want someone there the way Ma had been there, and he thought that maybe Bucky just didn't realize how great it was to have someone who took care of you and trusted in you and taught you how to be a good person. Bucky'd never had that, not really. The Sisters of Saint Joseph tried their best, but it was all prayer and paddling, and that wasn't the same as a family.

"Anyway," Bucky said suddenly, "Bucky Baxter is a stupid name."

So Fred Ward became Fred Baxter, and visited them all a few months later wearing a suit with a stiff collar that made Bucky snicker. Fred had his own toy gun now, and he let them all touch it, even Charlie Murphy.

3.

Mr. van Ruyven had a beautiful red car, and Mrs. van Ruyven had a necklace with a real diamond that shone right in the hollow of her throat, and they both came with the woman from the Children's Aid Society, which meant that they hadn't found the right boy at the Methodist Orphan Asylum or at the Presbyterian Home for Destitute Children, or at any of the Manhattan orphanages, and that they would probably leave if they didn't find a boy who was one hundred percent perfect, which was a shame, since Sister Felicity said that no boy could be perfect because God didn't make them that way.

Father Clark came rushing over to speak to the newcomers, and Sister Martha made everyone go upstairs to wash their faces and to change into the starchy white shirts they usually only wore on Christmas and Easter. Sister Catherine reminded them all how hard things had become recently, how nobody was donating money or toys or long underwear anymore, and how nobody was coming around to adopt, especially not people like the van Ruyvens.

She pulled aside the boys in Steve's dormitory for a special talk. They were still young enough to get picked, but some of them, especially Steve and Bucky and Charlie Murphy, wouldn't be young enough for long. Steve understood why age would matter with somebody like Charlie Murphy, who only seemed to be getting worse over time, but he thought it made no sense for someone like Bucky, who'd been solid when they were nine, and who was still solid now.

The van Ruyvens told Father Clark that they wanted a clever boy, so everyone had to go back upstairs to get their school books and then they all sat down to do their homework a whole two hours early, while Sister Winifred walked around and pointed out all the mistakes they were making and explained to the van Ruyvens which boys were good with numbers and which boys were good with history. Steve was pretty good with both, so he was alright, but he worried for Bucky, who was smart, but not in any of the ways that they tested for at school.

Charlie Murphy was a real lame-brain, so he was out, and so was Bucky before the van Ruyvens even got a good look at him, because Sister Felicity had showed them his last spelling test. Herb Clancey was exactly the right age, but he stuttered when he talked to strangers, and Mr. van Ruyven said that they really couldn't take a boy with such poor elocution.

Steve didn't stutter, and he'd gotten a perfect score on the last spelling test. Sister Winifred couldn't detect any problems with his essay, which was about his personal heroes (his father and General Pershing), and he'd made sure to bring down his new school workbook, the one that was neat and clean and didn't have any pictures scrawled in the margins.

They still didn't want him.

"Awfully small for eleven and a half, isn't he?" said Mr. van Ruyven.

"Really what we want is a sturdy boy," said Mrs. van Ruyven.

"Yes, a tough one," said Mr. van Ruyven, "Determined, maybe even a little stubborn."

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. van Ruyven. "Children have no vigor these days."

"Steve has vigor," Bucky said, poking his head back into the room. "_And_ he's determined, and stubborn isn't the half of i—"

But then Sister Felicity caught him by the arm and heaved him away, and Steve was left alone with the van Ruyvens and Sister Winifred and Father Clark.

"Who was that?" said Mrs. van Ruyven.

"Nice looking little fellow," added Mr. van Ruyven.

"Yes, really what we want is a handsome boy," said Mrs. van Ruyven.

Steve thought that maybe they didn't know what they wanted, and maybe they didn't even really want a child as much as they thought they did, but maybe none of that mattered. People like the van Ruyvens didn't come along every day, or ever, really, and Bucky wouldn't have many more chances before he became too old to get picked.

And what did it matter if they couldn't make up their minds? That didn't mean they couldn't be nice people, and it was good that they were giving Bucky a chance. After all, it didn't matter if they didn't want Steve; Steve'd had a Ma once. Bucky was another story. He didn't remember his parents that well, and it wasn't fair that someone like him – clever _and_ determined _and_ sturdy _and_ nice-looking, not skinny like Steve – wouldn't ever have a Ma and a Pop.

"His name's Bucky. He's really good at geography," Steve said.

So then Mr. van Ruyven made them bring Bucky back in, and Bucky dodged this latest paddling, and then he got another knapsack and another set of long underwear (even though they were running low), and this time Father Clark didn't get to talk about the Warm And Holy Bosom because the van Ruyvens said they were running late for dinner, and would the Sisters please hurry it up a bit?

"I'm not going," Bucky said, while the van Ruyvens were out starting the car, "Who's going to keep you from doing something stupid while I'm—"

"Stupid is not going," Steve said.

"Stupid is leaving you behind to get beat up because some fancy—"

"That's the _stupidest_ reason not to go," Steve said fiercely, only then Sister Felicity was dragging Bucky away by the ear, and Steve was already regretting getting so mad. He didn't want Bucky's last memory of him to be like that. Even if he did want that to be Bucky's last memory of him.

That night he prayed that Bucky would be happy even if he never forgave Steve, and that Bucky's new parents would teach him to drive that amazing red car of theirs, and that they wouldn't annoy Bucky too much with how hard it was for them to make up their minds, and, most importantly, that Bucky wouldn't come back to the Warm And Holy Bosom. Because it _was_ stupid of him to keep coming back, and all because of Steve, and Steve didn't want to be the only thing keeping him from a family.

He told Mrs. Palmieri this after school, once he'd ducked into her store to buy some chestnuts.

"Family doesn't have to have a mother and a father," said Mrs. Palmieri.

"I know that," Steve said, because he'd grown up fine with just Ma, but the reality of it was that just a woman wasn't enough to adopt, only couples, so he didn't see why it was so important for Mrs. Palmieri to point this out.

"Maybe he already has his family," Mrs. Palmieri said.

Steve shook his head. "The Sisters aren't family. Not even for him, and I think he'd be good family to anybody. He's really solid, you know?"

And he was, but the van Ruyvens weren't. They returned Bucky a few days later, in a car that had a long jagged scratch down one side, and said that really what they wanted was a dog.

"The car, Bucky?" Steve said, after Sister Felicity felt Bucky had been paddled sufficiently for his sins.

"Why not?" Bucky said. "They're gangsters, anyway. That's why they have so much money. It's dirty money, and that's a dirty car they bought with it. Plus, she steals all her jewels from safety deposit boxes, and I heard them talking about how they want to rig the next presidential election."

"Stop. This isn't a story," Steve said. "It's real. That could have been your last chance."

"Yeah, Steve, it _is_ real," Bucky said, "That's why I'm not sitting around waiting to prove myself to some make-believe happy family."

And he wouldn't talk to Steve for the rest of the evening.

4.

Here is how Steve almost ruined everything:

It began with the Harrises, who needed someone to work in their store. They did not like the sort that came sniffling around for jobs these days, Mrs. Harris said. They did not like this business of unions and tramps demanding high wages and Sundays off, Mr. Harris said. They did not like Herb Clancey's stutter, Mr. Harris added. They thought boys of Lloyd Fasola's sort were likely to be diseased, Mrs. Harris said. They should make Lloyd go get a button-hook, Mr. Harris said. Someone ought to roll back the boy's eyelid with it, Mrs. Harris said. That was the only way to be sure about the disease, especially with the swarthy ones, Mr. Harris said. They couldn't possibly be expected to consider a swarthy boy who might also be diseased, Mrs. Harris said.

And Steve remembered Ma right then, even though Ma wasn't anything like the Harrises, because he thought about Ma a lot, always, telling him that there were bound to be tests, but if he was good and tried his best, then how could anyone not like him? How could a stupid little test mess him up? There wasn't any test that had ever scared Ma. Except for the button-hook test. But then button-hook tests weren't like real tests. They were cheats.

It'd happened back on Ellis Island when Ma had been just a girl, and they hadn't even cleaned the button-hook beforehand, and it had hurt a lot. What was worse than the hurt, Ma had said, was the humiliation. She'd cried right there, in the middle of the vast, crowded hall, and Pop had broken out of the men's line to comfort her, and they'd almost sent him back to Ireland for it. Back then, those tests were supposed to show that you were strong enough to become an American; but Lloyd Fasola was already an American; and Steve didn't think being strong had anything to do with how good or how American you could be; and, anyway, _real_ good Americans, good people in general, wouldn't turn you away or do painful things to you just because you seemed weaker than other people. That was what made the test a cheat, because good people couldn't be sniffed out with a button-hook, and they weren't like the Harrises; they were like Bucky and Ma and Pop, and they'd help you out no matter how weak you seemed.

And Steve wanted to be like that.

"Don't let them do it," he told Lloyd. "It'll hurt, and it only works to test if you're going blind. That's what my Ma said, and she was a nurse."

So then Mrs. Harris told Steve that little boys with dead mothers should be seen and not heard, and Sister Felicity told Mrs. Harris that she would handle this, and then she grabbed Steve by the ear and twisted it hard. Before she could drag Steve upstairs for a paddling, Mr. Harris stopped her, jeering, and asked her how much she'd pay for the Harrises to take the scrawny one off of their hands.

And Steve felt his stomach drop out beneath his feet.

But then Bucky was there, saying, "They oughtta raise the adoption fees just for you, because you're such a creep," and Sister Felicity was dragging them both upstairs, and that was alright. A paddling they could deal with. But Steve didn't want to think about either of them being adopted by the Harrises.

"Hold on," said Mr. Harris, "Bring the mouthy one back down here. I want to take a look at him."

So Bucky went back downstairs, and Steve was dragged upstairs to hold his knees for twenty swats, and by the time he ran back downstairs, wheezing, Bucky was gone. All because Steve had tried to be heroic, like Pop back on Ellis Island, only all he'd done was ruin everything, because Steve wasn't Pop. He wasn't like Ma, either, because she probably could have found the right family for Bucky by now. And he definitely wasn't anything like Bucky himself. Bucky always helped Steve. But all Steve had done was land Bucky with the Harrises. That wasn't help.

Something told Steve that was more like harm.

Sister Anthony said that the Harrises, like the van Ruyvens, were busy and couldn't be expected to stay for long; and Sister Catherine said that they'd needed a good strong boy to lift all those boxes at their store and that Bucky was the strongest boy the orphanage had; and Sister Winifred reminded Steve to judge not, lest he be judged, and also that he ought to be happy for Bucky because Bucky had a family now; and Sister Felicity said that the Harrises would straighten Bucky out, or, Saints protect them, nothing would.

Steve didn't think Bucky needed straightening out. And he'd wanted Bucky to have a family, but not a family like the Harrises. Not a family that was all sneers and jeers and button-hook threats. That wasn't right for anybody, least of all Bucky. So he prayed that Bucky would come back, like he always did.

But Bucky didn't.

Later that month, Sister Martha (who'd always been Bucky's favorite Sister) took them all to Coney Island (which was Bucky's favorite place), and it was wrong – all wrong. No one was there to needle Steve because he didn't want to ride the Cyclone or the Thunderbolt or the swinging cars on the Wonder Wheel; and no one was there to argue that Steeplechase was better than Luna Park, no matter what Charlie Murphy said; and no one was there to eat the rest of Steve's hot dog because he'd downed the first bites too quickly and was starting to feel queasy as a result.

But, then, the queasiness probably didn't come from the hot dog. It came from how he'd failed Bucky. Bucky had defended him from Charlie Murphy and the worse of the Sisters and anyone who'd ever made fun of Steve's size. Only Steve hadn't been there to defend him in turn, and probably the only reason the Harrises had even noticed Bucky in the first place was because Steve hadn't been able to keep his mouth shut. He'd wanted to be fearless and stalwart and determined, just like Bucky was, but all he'd done was let Bucky down.

No wonder he didn't want to be at Coney. He didn't want to be anyplace except where Bucky was, but who knew if Bucky was anyplace good?

When the others began pestering Sister Martha to let them go see the freak show (Bucky's favorite was the man with the revolving head) and Henderson's Music Hall (Bucky said the two-man acts were the funniest) and the wax museum (Bucky always assured Steve that he also thought the wax presidents were better than the wax criminals, even though the presidents did boring things like sign wax papers with fancy wax pens, while the criminals did fascinating, macabre things that left them coated in wax body parts and wax blood), Steve hung back near the baby incubators, and so he met Mr. and Mrs. Melnikov, who told him they never missed a chance to wish the babies good luck.

"Just because they are so small, see?" said Mrs. Melnikov. "I think they need our support."

"I wish you could meet my friend Bucky," Steve told her. "He does that, too."

Of course, the methods were different. The Melnikovs were blowing kisses and saying prayers in a language Steve couldn't understand, while Bucky would usually just pick out the smallest one and say, "Hey, Steve. Look at him. He's gonna be a general, you just wait. Aren't you, kid? Just keep your chin up."

But the principle was the same.

"Where is this Bucky, then?" said Mr. Melnikov. "I want to meet a like-minded man!"

"Someplace awful," Steve admitted, "And it's all my fault. He was just trying to help me out, and he got in trouble for it, and I didn't mean to let him down, but I was trying to be more like him, really—"

"But this Bucky is a good man, yes?" said Mrs. Melnikov. "You were trying to be a good man?"

"Yes," Steve said, "I mean, he's the best. He's brave, and he always stands up for people, and—"

"Then I think he would understand," said Mr. Melnikov, "If you were trying to be a good man. This is a noble thing to try for. And maybe someday he will meet you again, and he will try to be as good as you are. This is true friendship: the two people making each other better."

Steve nodded. The bit about friendship sounded right, even if he couldn't ever imagine Bucky wanting to be like him. Bucky was strong and tough and everyone wanted him. Steve was the exact opposite.

"I think when someone is your friend," Mrs. Melnikov added, "They will choose to help you and they will not mind when it brings them trouble. Trouble is always a possibility, yes? So we must respect the choice."

Steve shrugged. The choice wasn't the problem. The problem was that Bucky had always been there for him, and Steve hadn't been able to repay the favor. By now, though, it didn't matter, because Sister Martha was beckoning him back to the group and then it was time to see the wax museum. And the queasiness didn't go away. Not through all thirty-one presidents, and not through fourteen of the murderers, and, when they got to Hickman the Fox dismembering a little girl in a bath tub, Steve felt it actually get _worse_.

That was when Sister Martha decided that maybe they should have gone to the freak show instead, so she made them all leave, and, because it had started to rain, she cut the trip short and packed them all onto the next train out of Coney. Steve had expected to feel relieved – it really wasn't right to be at Coney without Bucky – but he still felt queasy all through Brighton Beach, and past Kings Highway, and well into Flatbush, and all down Fifth Avenue and then Fulton Street.

Until suddenly the queasiness went away.

Because there, on the steps of the orphanage, was Bucky. He was sopping wet and alone, and he was only in an undershirt, and he had a black eye and a huge purple bruise on one arm, but he was there, all the same. Steve ran to him, and held his hand while Sister Anthony checked him over, and stayed with him all through the fight that Sister Martha had with Sister Felicity that night (Sisters weren't supposed to fight, really, but they were only people, and so they did sometimes, and, anyway, Reverend Mother sided with Bucky and Sister Martha, and even said that she didn't want to see the Harrises showing their faces around the orphanage ever again. So that was that).

And then they were back upstairs, alone, and Steve could swear he hadn't felt this happy since Ma was alive, only he had lost her, and he hadn't lost Bucky, so maybe he even felt a little bit happier now.

"Don't worry. It wasn't fun without you," Steve said, because Charlie Murphy had already bragged to Bucky about Coney. Really what Steve meant to say was that Coney had been all wrong with Bucky gone, and that _he_ had been all wrong with Bucky gone, and that he never wanted Bucky gone again. But that seemed too heavy and intense to let out, so he held it in.

Bucky didn't say anything back. He just crawled into bed next to Steve and buried his head under the pillow. Steve kept expecting him to speak, to give another long-winded, storybook reason for coming back this time, but, then, this time a reason wasn't really necessary. And maybe this time Bucky didn't need someone there pestering him about coming back. Coming back was right this time.

"Hey," Steve said, "Do you want me to go?"

But Bucky snaked out a hand and gripped his wrist hard, and said, "_No_," so Steve stayed put.

"I'm not going back to Coney without you," Steve told him quietly. "And I'll even ride the Cyclone next time, if you want. You shouldn't have to ride with Charlie every time."

Bucky squeezed his wrist again, softer this time. So that was all right.

5.

Steve was thirteen and three quarters, and almost too old, when he met the Spiegels. The first thing they insisted on was that everyone call them by their first names, but that felt too strange and familiar for guests – guests came and measured you up and then left, and you didn't need to know first names for that – so Steve still thought of them as the Spiegels, even though he had to greet them as Walter and Ida.

Ida had a black bob and smelled of something smoky, and Walter wore a hand-knit scarf around his throat and tapped his fingers to an inaudible melody. They didn't want to ask anyone's ages, or to compare anyone's hair, or to see to how smart or strong anyone was, but Walter did start up a tune on the piano in the parlor (never played until that moment, since Sister Felicity felt that the boys were all secretly waiting for their chance to break it), and Ida taught everyone the lyrics, which were about wishing your sweetheart a hot goodnight.

This made some of the Sisters nervous, Steve could tell, but no one told the Spiegels to stop. Walter played very well, and Ida sang even better, and it turned out that they'd written the songs themselves, because this was part of what the Spiegels did: they wrote music. They engaged in other artistic endeavors, Ida said, but the music was what counted these days, especially with the way the country was now. Even though most families couldn't afford a new son, the Spiegels made money selling songs to film studios. This meant (as Ida explained to Sister Catherine in an undertone that Steve nonetheless overheard) that they didn't need a boy to work; they needed a boy to spend money on and to spoil rotten.

They didn't sneer at Herb Clancey's stutter, which was worse today, since he had just turned ten and received the special lecture reserved for the older boys for the first time. They helped fix Lloyd Fasola's yo-yo, which he'd saved up for all year and which Charlie Murphy had broken in minutes. They didn't press Steve when they saw him curled up near the window seat, drawing. They played every song requested of them, even 'Yes, We Have No Bananas.'

Steve liked them. Bucky might've liked them, too, only Bucky never came downstairs to see the guests anymore, and Reverend Mother said he didn't have to, either, not after the Harrises. So he was holed up in the older boys' dormitory upstairs, listening to the ancient Victrola and tossing a baseball at the ceiling, which was sure to make Sister Felicity furious if she caught him at it.

"You should come meet them," Steve said, without preamble. "They're nice. I mean, they're a little strange, too, but not in a bad way."

"Yeah?" Bucky said, stopping the baseball for just a moment, "You gonna go home with them?"

Steve blinked. "I don't think they'll want me," he said. "I mean, nobody ever likes—"

"They'll like you," Bucky said flatly. He straightened up, and Steve could see how the old orphanage hand-me-downs, ill-fitting at the best of times, were starting to strain at his shoulders. Bucky had been growing for as long as Steve had known him, shooting up at a breakneck pace. Steve used to crawl into bed with him at nights because Bucky's legs hurt so bad from the growing pains, and because Bucky would always rush to help him when he had an asthma attack, so it didn't seem fair to leave him alone when he was hurting. Him helping Bucky and Bucky helping him was just what they _did_, anyway: always two skinny, ungainly kids together. Only now Bucky was firm and broad in ways he hadn't been before, and had strength that he didn't always know how to control and a surprising amount of grace for all that, and Steve had a feeling that he wouldn't ever catch up.

So he had to be like Bucky in other ways; that was all.

"Everybody likes you, you know," Bucky continued. He threw the baseball again, this time with enough force to chip the plaster on the ceiling, and Steve couldn't tell if this was a mistake or entirely intentional. "Name one person you've met on the street or in a store or something who doesn't think you're the bees knees."

"That's different," Steve said. "That's not a family. Families never want me; you know that. Nobody wants to take home the kid with the weak heart and the—"

Bucky snorted. "Trust me, a weak heart isn't your problem. And they've all liked you, Steve. Only the stupid ones didn't want you."

"So they've all been stupid?"

"Guess so," Bucky said, by now waging an all-out war on the ceiling. "If these two are smart, they'll want you."

And that was that. He didn't want to come downstairs, and Steve had to go back before Sister Felicity came pounding upstairs to find him and busted Bucky for destroying the ceiling in the process. So he grabbed his notebook, and those colorful brochures Mrs. Palmieri had given him the last time she'd seen him (of Pratt and the new Brooklyn College they were planning on building soon, not that he thought he was smart enough to go to either, but the glossy photographs would make for good inspiration, even if using photographs wasn't quite like drawing from life) and curled back underneath the window seat. Walter and Ida were talking excitedly to Lloyd Fasola, and somehow this made Steve feel relieved, although he couldn't quite understand why. He didn't think they were bad people, only what use was it figuring out how nice they were if Bucky wouldn't even come down to meet them?

He'd sketched a Main Hall and a Historic Library, and (he felt) improved on the design for a State-Of-The-Art Gymnasium, and begun to add the sorts of things that Bucky said made pictures more interesting – tigers and roller coasters and men with guns and baseball players and dames with tight gowns and bouncing curls – when someone next to him coughed and he looked up to see Ida.

"Like to draw?" she said. "Me too. Here, how about this? May I?"

Steve nodded without thinking, and she pulled a pencil from her pocket and descended onto his notebook, where she turned the Main Hall cupola into something like a flower and the columns on the Gymnasium into verdant palm trees. Steve rather liked the effect, so he complemented this by making the library into a fruit grove (though still sort of a library, of course. It was only interesting if you could make it both at once), and Ida clapped her hands, delighted.

"Someday all buildings will be designed like this," she told Steve. "Industry and nature. Science and art. It's all meant to flow together harmoniously. You just wait. By the next century, artists and politicians and businessmen and scientists will all be the same."

Steve didn't quite know how to respond to that, but he liked the future she'd helped him sketch out. It seemed thrilling and pleasant all at once, and the tigers and dames and men with guns somehow looked less discordant on a campus that was also a vast jungle. It was a fantasy (Steve figured it would take so long to get to the next century that he would probably never get to see it, even if it did turn out like this), but a nice one, at least.

"It's a good dream," he offered.

"A harmonious, nonviolent future is a dream that we can make a reality," Ida said, and then she called Walter over and he showed Steve his American Peace Society pin.

Steve hadn't known there was an American Peace Society, and he didn't have much to say on it, in any case (he didn't think Ma had been a pacifist, or Pop either, and Bucky definitely wasn't), so he showed them his other drawings instead. He thought maybe they wouldn't like the ones with guns and the one he'd copied of General Sherman on the battlefield from his history book and the one he'd drawn to cheer Bucky up a long time ago, of the two of them fighting pirates who all looked suspiciously like Charlie Murphy. But the Spiegels just didn't comment on those. They liked the ones of Mrs. Palmieri's store, and of the street near the docks where all the sailors would sit and smoke. Ida even said the really old one of Ma, the one that he'd drawn before she'd died and before he even knew how to do the shading right, was simply beautiful.

"Did you teach yourself?" Walter said.

Steve nodded.

"Most boys your age are too busy fighting and rough-housing to teach themselves anything," Walter said.

"I can't really roughhouse," Steve said. "I have asthma." He used to hate admitting that, but nowadays he found he didn't mind as much. So what if they didn't want him because of it? He had Bucky; he was alright.

"Do you?" Ida said, "Maybe it's a hidden blessing." And then, "Here, what do you think of something like this?"

And she drew a book from her bag and flipped to a picture of a woman sitting alone on a train, no discernible lines anywhere and somehow so real that Steve almost believed it was a photograph.

"You like it?" Ida said, and, when Steve nodded again, she handed him the book and let him leaf through it.

"Now see what he makes of Hilla's," Walter said, and then to Steve, "A friend of ours. Very different from this. Not even representational." And then he was digging around in Ida's bag for another book.

It seemed like they had ten million different pictures – some with bright, loud colors, and some with sharp angles, and some with people cut up into geometric pieces that still looked more alive than real people did. They had fantastic pictures that somebody had drawn routinely, and routine pictures that somebody had pasted and photographed into one fantastic collage. Steve didn't think you got to see things like this just anywhere: probably not even at Pratt or the new Brooklyn College.

"Did you get these from a museum or something?" Steve said, and the Spiegels seemed to think this was funny, somehow, even though he hadn't meant for it to be a joke.

"How would you like to come along and help us find more of these?" Walter said. "Art is what drives us."

"I'd love—" Steve began, but then he stopped. Art drove him too, but it was only one of the things that drove him. Of course, it was nice to find other people who didn't think his scribbles were stupid. Some of the Sisters said they were a waste of time, and Steve didn't think that was right, because art was important. Only it wasn't the most important thing that drove him. Because there was the drive to make Ma and Pop proud (just because they were dead didn't mean they couldn't be disappointed), and to be as good a friend to Bucky as Bucky was to him. And then there was not giving up when things got hard, and standing up for people when they needed you, and telling the truth.

That was a big one. Maybe even sort of crucial right now, since Walter and Ida didn't seem to have understood about the asthma. People usually gave up on him when it came to the asthma, no matter how good his drawings were.

"I get sick a lot," Steve said. "And I'm almost fourteen, which I bet you didn't know. Because I'm not very tall."

"What use would we possibly have for a tall boy?" Ida said. "Great, galumphing things."

"Swaggering," Walter said. "Blustering bullies, all of them."

And they both smiled at Steve.

It made him feel odd. Slightly nervous, but not unhappy – definitely not that. Because they _wanted_ him, and how could that make him unhappy? This business with the pictures and the drawing had been a test, and he'd passed it, and, even if they hadn't said so directly, he was the boy they wanted to take home and spoil rotten. Not someone bigger and healthier. Him.

And he bet the Spiegels had pencils and paints and large swaths of perfect, white paper waiting to be filled at home. And a piano, and maybe more than one record-player, and more notebooks than he'd ever be able to fill out, and cameras and chalk and clay. He bet they were home a lot, and when they weren't they were always taking you to interesting places, and he bet they never paddled or caned or swatted you or anything. True, he'd probably have to go to lot of Peace Society rallies. He couldn't imagine what Ma and Pop might make of that, let alone Bucky. But he'd probably have to go to college, too, so he'd know how to describe all the different ways to make art, and that didn't seem like it would be so bad. Bucky always said he ought to try school, since he wasn't half-bad at it.

Bucky. That was the nervousness. What would happen to Bucky?

Bucky only had a few more years here, and after that Steve could probably see him again, but what if the Spiegels didn't want him around? They only wanted one, and they wanted one that was peaceful. Bucky wasn't peaceful. And Steve didn't even want to think about him alone in the Bosom, bored out of his mind, with nobody around who was smart enough to see when he was just teasing and when he meant a genuine fight. He didn't want to think about all the trouble Bucky could get into, challenging the Sisters all the time. And it still didn't seem fair that Bucky was stuck here, like he'd always been, while Steve got a whole new family, a second family, even. Bucky still hadn't had one.

The closest thing he had was Steve.

Steve didn't think he was much of a stand-in for family. Half the time, he got Bucky into more trouble than he was able to get Bucky out of. And he couldn't do the things Ma had done; he couldn't really comfort Bucky or look after him or teach Bucky right from wrong, because who learned that stuff from somebody like Steve, anyway? But none of that mattered now. What mattered now was that Steve didn't want to let Bucky down again. And going with the Spiegels felt like letting him down, even if maybe Bucky wouldn't see it that way, because Bucky deserved better than that.

"I can't," Steve said. "I'm sorry. But Lloyd Fasola's artistic. He's good with a camera. And he hardly ever roughhouses. He doesn't like guns or anything."

Then he excused himself and went upstairs, feeling bad because he didn't feel worse about the looks on the Spiegels' faces. He thought about saying that they'd been spies from Norway who wanted to undermine the nation, or that they smuggled boys away to work in coalmines in Mexico, or that they lived in New Jersey. But, when Bucky looked at him funny, all he said was, "They're not as nice as they look. And they didn't want me, anyway."

"Stupid," Bucky said.

"Yeah, I guess I was," Steve said, stretching out on the bed. Because he hadn't really understood why Bucky kept coming back, and he'd gone on trying to land Bucky with a new family, even when it was clear that Bucky didn't want a new family because sometimes the things that kept you from finding a family and a future and a perfect, harmonious life were more important.

"Them, Steve," Bucky said, "Not you. If I was looking for a boy, you know I'd pick you every time."

"I know," Steve said. He grinned at the ceiling.

Bucky continued, "Reverend Mother would say, 'Here's a big shot. What'll it be, duke?' And I'd say, 'Gimme the skinny one that won't quit—'"

"Hey!" Steve said, and threw a pillow at his face.

"I wouldn't ever leave you behind, kid," Bucky said loftily, "That's all I'm saying."

Because Bucky was only a few months older than he was, and had no business calling him a kid, Steve took this as his cue to lean over and punch him in the shoulder. But he knew what Bucky was saying. He couldn't envision Bucky ever leaving and not coming back, not living up to their friendship like that. And he wasn't ever going to let Bucky down, either. And that was just the way it was going to be, no matter who or what loomed on the horizon.

"You sure they weren't gun-toting labor racketeers or something?" Bucky said, climbing up onto the bed and stretching out next to Steve. It was a tight fit, but Steve didn't mind.

"What?" Steve said.

"The people downstairs."

"Oh," Steve said, "No. Pacifists."

Bucky snorted. "Well, then they're definitely not right for you."

"Yeah." Steve said. "What if I wanted to join the army or something?"

He'd always sort of wanted to, actually. Ma would have liked that: he could be like Pop. And the army would be perfect for Bucky. They could do it together.

"Come with me?"

"Sure," Bucky said. "Follow you anywhere. You know that."

Steve hadn't. But he did now. And he suspected that, now, the feeling was mutual.


End file.
